Radio Bikini

(1987)

Radio Bikini is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning (and Oscar nominated) documentary film about the greatest operation to test nuclear weapons ever conducted by the United States. Staged at a remote Pacific atoll called Bikini in the summer of 1946, the tests (code-named Operation Crossroads) were also one of the first great ‘media events’ of the modern age. Using rare and mostly never-before-seen archival footage, the film unfolds through the eyes of the elderly chief of the Bikinians, Kilon Bauno, and a former American serviceman, John Smitherman, who was there. Radio Bikini combines ‘live’ radio broadcasts from Bikini in 1946 with footage of the entire operation, recreating a feeling of the event as it happened in a way that is both haunting and surreal. As the drama of this bizarre experiment unfolds, we witness glimpses of the U.S. Government’s never-completed attempt to produce a propaganda film about it. Ultimately, RADIO BIKINI is an allegorical portrait of a naive world at the dawn of a new era.

“an outstanding achievement on all levels… an extraordinarily perceptive, haunting and informative documentary. It presents itself with quiet conviction but its under-lying passion burns in our minds and souls… an enviable artistic contribution.”
– Los Angeles Times

“a terrific documentary… brilliantly edited. What is so wonderful and tragic about this film are its real-life Dr. Strangelove-like ironies. ‘PICK OF THE WEEK’.”
– L.A. Weekly

“a remarkable documentary collage… The awesome beauty of the explosions – not even Busby Berkeley could have managed it better.”
– London Times

Photographs:

Admiral Blandy shows the Bikinians photos of their island being destroyed by an atomic Bomb

Man checked for radioactivity hours after an atomic blast at Bikini – July 1946

Bekini Cheiftan Kilon Bauno with Robert Stone at the San Francisco International Film Festival 1988